A skeleton hung on coat hooks, we are more restricted
everyday, with limbs in plaster, hard skin forming around our frames.
It wipes us out, this new age disaster,

my sickly words slip backwards
forcing my shingles to stand up
and dig heels into my weak points.

My swelling cells cannot body-shift their way around
my  flooding heart.

I should be brave
but the alarms stop sounding and my knees stop supporting,
muscles unravel, they no longer carry this weight.
These thoughts are not helium, but airships --

with thousands of passengers stamping their feet
causing plane-quakes and three-hundred foot drops.
a propeller chops us up
at the diaphragm.
Your hug is not welcome here.